A clear and concise story

In the 1920’s, Ernest Hemmingway’s colleagues bet him that he couldn’t write a story in six words or less. They lost that bet when Hemmingway wrote “For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”

This story has so many lessons for presenting yourself to a potential employer when job searching. Choose your words very carefully to get across your strengths succinctly and with maximum impact. All the best advertisements have few words and after all, job searching is all about advertising yourself. You are the product which you need to package and present in a way which will be attractive to your target market.

This involves presenting the skills you have to offer, and to do this persuasively, think of specific instances when you demonstrated these skills and make sure you talk about the outcomes or benefits that your actions produced. A common mistake people make in both applications and interviews is to get bogged down in the detail of something they did, so the really persuasive bit – ie what benefits they produced for their employer – get lost. That’s really all that any potential employer is interested in – what you can do for them.

So plan a clear and concise story and you will sell yourself so much better…